To keep my brain from completely shriveling, I enrolled in evening writing and modern literature classes at the New School, and then at City College, where I read Eudora Welty for the first time. I fell in love with Welty’s writing style and found myself rereading passages just for the pleasure of revisiting her words. Lines like “It took me a long time to manage the independence, for I loved those who protected me” and “The memory is a living thing—it too is in transit” resonated so intimately that I thought she’d written them just for me. Those lines validated many of the thoughts I’d been turning over since I was a teenager. I took Welty everywhere—to bed, to the park bench for lunch, on the subway home. I even sneaked her into my desk at work, pulling her out between tasks to ingest just one more page.
In the bathroom one day at Scholastic, my eyes lingered over Welty’s last sentence in her book One Writer’s Beginnings: “Serious daring starts from within.” That night, bent over a stack of loose-leaf paper, I handwrote my final essay for class. “I can’t help but admire Welty’s demand for freedom and self-definition,” I scribbled down in closing. Eudora, like many of the authors who’d come into my life over the last few years, had spoken to me, and set me in motion.
A few days later I returned to my father’s apartment with an idea.
“Daddy, remember last year when you asked me what I love?” I sat in the side chair of his long oak dining room table and cleared my throat, prepared to finally give him an answer.
“Well, I figured it out—I love literature! I’ve looked into the best schools and programs, and I’ve narrowed down the ones I think would be perfect for me. Dad, I want to become a master of the written word!” I lingered on the word “master” for effect, hoping my enthusiasm would be contagious. I knew I’d have to sell this pursuit of a master’s degree in writing to him in a big way.
If there was one thing I knew about John Patterson, it was that he hated spending his money—and even more, he hated other people spending his money. Graduate school, no doubt, would be expensive. But Daddy himself had received an advanced degree, a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. He’d spent years studying the law not for the purposes of practicing it—he went for information, for mental dexterity, and for the connections a law degree provided. I assumed he, of all people, would understand the importance of learning to learn, mastering as a way of becoming stronger, better, and wiser. This would be my crucial piece of leverage. But instead of the enthusiasm I hoped for, Daddy sat next to me in silence, a deadpan look on his face.
“Grad school is for gay, fat, or ugly women. There’s no place for you there, Jodie.”
It was as though a sword had sliced through my knees, dropping me to the floor. He hadn’t said much, but those two little sentences spoke volumes. His intentions were clear: Not a dime of his money would be spent on my ideas, or on my dreams. Whatever he had planned for me was not up for debate. His words felt final.
I started rambling, trying my best to hold myself together while I appealed to his rational, educated self. “Daddy, you went to law school and look at how much it’s helped your career and your life. I just think it’s hypocrit—”
“Listen, do what you want, Jodie. But don’t think for a second that I’m going to pay for any of it. Zero.”
He turned in his chair to face me, looking directly into my eyes. “Stay focused. With your skin color, you can marry well.”
He left those words right there on the oak table for me to parse on my own. Then he flashed a smile that under any other circumstances might have smoothed everything over. But this time, it disintegrated me into a million tiny pieces. My own father had distilled me down to just skin—something I had no control over. And then he squeezed me down even smaller, to a color. And then he smiled at me as if it were all okay.
We weren’t equals, not in his mind. And we might never be. Men pursued degrees, as he had, so they could change the world. But women need only be smart enough to marry well, raise outstanding children, and run an efficient household. To Daddy, my endgame was solely family. I absolutely wanted family. But I also wanted to do things—big things—that would take me beyond the walls of my household, just as he had.
Gay. Fat. Ugly. He threw those words at me to stop me from doing what he didn’t think I should do. And he threw them so confidently because in his mind they could do only one thing: shame me out of my own confidence and make me change my mind.
I placed both hands on the table to stabilize myself. If I hadn’t, the clarity of the moment would have knocked me down. And then I cried, silently, facing him with tears streaming down my face—because I knew this was a battle over who would have final control over me.
My mind flashed back to everything Daddy had told me about the world being mine, and about fortifying myself against all the bad that was working against us. And I knew, then, that Daddy was part of it—he was a small piece of the bad that I was preparing myself for.
What if I were gay or fat or ugly? Did Daddy have the power to tell me “No, you can’t be those things”? Did he even have the right to define those three words?
The mountain of a problem that arose that night was not the lack of funding for my dreams, or that we disagreed. It wasn’t even confronting the idea that he would always take more for himself, leaving less for everyone else. The worst offense was finding out that my own father was part of the other side. The side where men and their residual sexism dwell—the kind of sexism that is passed down through generations. And I was squarely on the opposite side, where women fight for just about everything we want and any damn thing we need.
Staring at him at the head of his big oak table, the king upon his throne, looking down at his child asking permission for a bit of power—I couldn’t find any words. I couldn’t tell him how horrible he sounded, or how much I wanted him to be open to another way. Sadness came instead. Sadness for him, a man stuck in his ways. And for me, a young woman being arranged.
So I ran—out of the dining room, out of my father’s house, across Eighty-First Street and clumsily down the subway steps. I ran from the strongest provider I knew, and from a house that once made me whole. I ran because I couldn’t trust them anymore. I ran so hard and fast that the details of that frantic sprint have totally disappeared from my mind. I don’t remember the sounds of the street, or the faces of the subway passengers, or how I made it from the train to my loft. I don’t know what I told Serge when I burst through our door with tears in my eyes. All I remember is that I traveled as far away from Daddy and his ways as I could. I vowed to stay away until he understood—knowing that that time might never come.
That day, at twenty-two years old, I learned a valuable lesson: Once you give someone the power to judge just one tiny part of you, you invite that person to define all of you. I had allowed my father to make decisions about my life, on my behalf. And in doing so, I opened the floodgates of his judgment. The truth of it smacked me in the face: If I didn’t insist on defining myself, someone else most certainly would.
I would have to distance myself from my father—and anyone who needed me to be different from who I was or who I wanted to be. That, I believed, was the price to pay for owning myself. What I stood for that day, what I aspired to become, and all the moves I’d make in between would depend on it. For self-determination, there would be loss. Daddy was that collateral damage.
* * *
—
I stopped seeing, speaking to, and thinking about my father as best I could. Months went by when I didn’t answer any of his calls. A letter arrived in the mail one afternoon:
It may seem as though we are forever at odds. I love you too much, forever, to accept that. Please allow me to keep trying in order to make our relationship better. See my love.
Forever, Dad
I read it, folded it in half, and tucked it deep into my desk drawer.
Being at odds with him left an
immediate and massive void. When a problem came up that I’d normally ask my dad to help me solve, about life or friends or a bothersome and competitive coworker, I didn’t have anyone to turn to. No one seemed sharp enough or qualified enough to advise me. But still I wouldn’t reach out.
And then, a few months later, as if the season had changed, I let go of him completely. He’d become too painful, and I had someone else now to put all my energy, belief, and love into. I had Serge, and he became my everything. I drew him entirely in with just as much conviction as I extricated my father from my life. Where Daddy felt like a wall around me, Serge was flowing water. He seemed to love me for me, and for everything I wanted to be. I was ecstatic when I was with him.
Watching me with Serge, there were flashes of hesitation in my mother’s eyes. She, more than anyone else, knew the effects of a broken heart. My parents had been divorced for several years at that point, and Mama knew firsthand how the soul wanders after a break, trying to find stability. She saw me bending toward Serge, noticing how I smiled at him when he spoke, how I lapped up his words and his laughter, giddy with the thought that this exciting, free-spirited man was all mine.
“Are you sure about this, Jodie?” Mama would ask, foreboding in her voice, knowing how it might all play out—how it did for her, at least, after she and my father had separated.
But it was too late. Life with Serge was exhilarating. We were perpetually guided by the chase—of new ideas, new experiences, and new opportunities. If my dad was stuck in his old ways and habits, I absolutely would not be. Serge and I together had a chance to rewrite the story. He was a designer in the nightlife business, so his entire career revolved around capturing the zeitgeist, then embodying it in brick and mortar—hoping people would come, revel, and pass on the good word. That meant we were constantly surrounded by creatives—artists and writers, musicians and chefs, who thought only in the realm of possibility, driven exclusively by the challenge of manifesting their wildest dreams.
I was putting in eight soul-sucking hours a day at my communications job at Scholastic, then rushing home to come alive again with Serge and his friends. We’d eat out every night and talk for hours over several bottles of wine. Their new ideas would soon become restaurants or plays or paintings; their musings would turn into projects that had the entire city at attention. It was intoxicating. Serge’s life held a mirror up to my own boring existence of faxing and copying and reading copy from my desk.
I thought a job in publishing would feed my love of stories and pull me closer to the smart, engaged people I wanted to surround myself with. I entered the workforce with a romantic picture of what it would be like—I envisioned something similar to my English Literature classroom back at Spelman, where we enthusiastically read and dissected great works for hours. But in reality, the career I thought would tap into my creativity, bringing me closer to myself, actually stifled me—chaining me to my desk, to the manuscripts and their deadlines, and to a mostly older, white conservative world of which I wanted no part. Every time I walked into those publishing offices, I felt as though I was stepping into their grid and out of my own. It was the rigidity of the work that bothered me—it felt, once again, like walls closing me in.
In less than a year, I left my job and bounced around to other niche publishing houses, trying to find that exact energy I was craving. I was sure Scholastic wasn’t indicative of the entire industry, and with a little hard work I believed I could find the right company to match my desire to create. The collision—between work and personal life, reality and aspiration—happens so often as we feel our way through life. And it was happening to me again, and again and again. But with each time my ideal didn’t quite match up with my day-to-day life, I could also feel myself inching a little closer to what I needed.
Almost everyone Serge introduced me to was creating a career that mirrored their passions and personalities. Up-and-coming clothing designers, fashion stylists, DJs—they were all originators and explorers who flowed without restrictions. With them, there was no separation between their “work” selves and their “real” selves. I’d look at them and then wonder about myself—What is my special thing, my mojo? What story am I going to tell one day?
* * *
—
“Serge, you’ve been so quiet recently—what’s going on?” I asked him one morning at our kitchen table.
I knew his work took him to far-off places in his mind: Area, MK, Bowery Bar, Time Café, Fez, Sticky Mike’s. Creating those places meant he would disappear inside his thoughts for months at a time. Serge wasn’t just opening up restaurants or lounges, he was creating iconic moments that would shape our city and culture. They were other worlds and different times, and they had the special ability to synchronize people. I knew what he was spending his time on was important, but whenever he zoned into his work, it made me feel left out. I wanted to be a part of whatever he was brewing, to understand the behind-the-curtain secrets to his magic, to know exactly how he created. I’d been observing Serge’s process since we moved in together, but I needed him to spell it out for me.
“I don’t know what’s going on with me,” he said casually, sipping his coffee. “I’m just in my head, I guess. I have this idea, of a venue that changes every night—like, completely transforms.” Serge had pages and pages of torn strips of tracing paper thrown about the house with images he’d drafted. Banquettes that would become intimate corners in his next restaurant, lighting fixtures that would set the mood in his newest lounge, bodies and silhouettes and faces—many of which looked like me in various formations.
“I’m working on something big, Jodie. It’s still rough—I need more time to make it all happen.” I had no idea what he was talking about, or how it would all turn out, but I knew, by the way he spoke and from what he’d done before, that it would be amazing. It made me realize just how desperately I wanted to make things happen, to actualize a dream.
“You know, babe, I’ve never lived on my own. I’ve either been with my parents, or my roommates, or now, with you. I’ve never brought anything to life, not by myself. Not an empty apartment, or an idea—nothing.” Serge looked at me across the table as if he knew the inevitable was coming.
Later that night, under the covers, I blurted out what I’d been mulling over all afternoon:
“I think…I need to move out. I need my own bed to spread out in, and my own walls to hang art on. I need something all mine.”
Serge shifted his pillow and turned to me, putting his hands on my face. “I get it, you should have your own space.” He responded in true Serge fashion—softly and without conflict. “It’ll probably be good for you.” He paused for a beat to remember. “It was for me when I was in my twenties.” His eyes told me that he would miss us snuggled together, the way we were that night, and that he wasn’t naïve about what could happen with new space between us. But his arms around my body told me he would, in the end, be supportive of my decision.
Within weeks I moved to the East Village, into a tiny, shabby but gloriously all-mine studio. I bought a vintage fire-red leather couch from our favorite outdoor flea market, constructed a loft bed that extended from wall to wall, and bought cheap daisies from the bodega around the corner to adorn the only table I had. It was a baby step to independence, but a powerful one—having my very own set of keys that no one else had copies to, locking the door behind me each night knowing that no one else was expected. For that year, every penny I scraped together for my rent felt well spent.
Eventually, when I got tired of the dirt and grime of the East Village—and the teenagers sleeping in my doorway, high on whatever drug they’d taken—I decided to move to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where the Black bohemian scene was starting to emerge. It was an electric community where everyone wanted to be amazing and beautiful. The positive energy on the streets of Fulton and South Elliott, my block, was palpable—I swear I could feel it on my ski
n. Digable Planets, the underground hip-hop group known for their breakout hit “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” were my neighbors, the indie film director Spike Lee lived just around the corner, and the music journalist Touré, who had an apartment across from Fort Greene Park, became like a brother to me. We were all a tribe, looking out for one another. Salif, the owner of the Senegalese restaurant downstairs from my apartment, would offer me dinner on the house, knowing my funds got tight toward the end of the month. And the Brooklyn Moon Café, where a young Erykah Badu was known to test out new material, had the support of the entire neighborhood filling the space each night. We sustained our local businesses, watched out for one another, and kept the vibe just right.
Living in Fort Greene was like living in the mecca of magic. Rents were still low and life felt easy. On any given Saturday, all I needed to do was step out my front door, make a right onto Fulton, and wait for something amazing to come my way—and it was bound to. Amazingness could be the perfect conversation between friends, or a belly laugh over a moment that had just passed, or an instant of connectivity between you and whoever happened to be on your right or left. Spontaneity was the theme of each day. Sometimes I’d sit outside the laundromat between South Elliott and South Oxford for hours while my clothes spun ’round and ’round, chatting up my friends on music and fashion and food as they passed by. Then I’d make my way over to the barbershop to get my hair cut with the fellas and laugh for a solid hour while five guys I knew from the neighborhood cracked jokes and talked smack. We would eventually roll over to one of their apartments, smoke a joint, and listen to Al Green late into the night, dreaming of what could be.
Working in an office, at a desk, typing letters into a computer all day, felt futile in comparison to what was happening in Brooklyn. I was beginning to realize that office structure and protocol, plus the slow pace of editing, just wasn’t for me. All I wanted to do was marinate in the surprise of each Brooklyn day, in my electric community of Fort Greene.
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